US economy grew a record 33.1% annual rate last quarter but the pandemic remains an enormous threat

The US economy in the summer recovered much of the historically enormous ground it lost in the spring, expanding at the fastest rate on record in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

Still, the recovery remains incomplete. The economic crisis that Covid-19 brought on is far from over, and the pandemic threatens to plunge the American economy into turmoil again as infection numbers continue to rise rapidly across the country.

The third quarter, however, was one for the record books. Gross domestic product -- the broadest measure of...